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***Let me preface this post with a handy disclaimer for clarification – When women say that have been abused – I believe them.***
**Update – Lucy DeCoutere speaks of her abusive experience with Jian Ghomeshi on CBC radio’s show The Current – Catch the podcast here.**
Okay this story broke over the weekend and the major print media involved so far has been the Toronto Star. In the TS’s words here is what happened –
“CBC star Jian Ghomeshi has been fired over “information” the public broadcaster recently received that it says “precludes” it from continuing to employ the 47-year-old host of the popular Q radio show. Shortly after CBC announced Ghomeshi was out the door on Sunday, Ghomeshi released news that he was launching a $50-million lawsuit claiming “breach of confidence and bad faith” by his employer of almost 14 years. He later followed that up with a Facebook posting saying he has been the target of “harassment, vengeance and demonization.”
Hmm. Well I think the CBC’s information – having a host that is violent toward women – is probably a good reason for canning the dude.
“Ghomeshi’s statement said that he has been open with the CBC about the allegations. He said the CBC’s decision to fire him came after he voluntarily showed evidence late last week that everything he has done was consensual. Ghomeshi blames a woman he describes as an ex-girlfriend for spreading lies about him and orchestrating a campaign with other women to “smear” him.
The three women interviewed by the Star allege that Ghomeshi physically attacked them on dates without consent. They allege he struck them with a closed fist or open hand; bit them; choked them until they almost passed out; covered their nose and mouth so that they had difficulty breathing; and that they were verbally abused during and after sex.
A fourth woman, who worked at CBC, said Ghomeshi told her at work: “I want to hate f— you.”
Fascinating. It would seem that Ghomeshi has the standard defense of blaming and making women responsible for his shitty behaviour down pat. Might another dodge in the dude’s handbook be that what he does in private (beating women) should have no effect on his job?
“Let me be the first to say that my tastes in the bedroom may not be palatable to some folks. They may be strange, enticing, weird, normal, or outright offensive to others. … But that is my private life. … And no one, and certainly no employer, should have dominion over what people do consensually in their private life.”
Ah, but Jian the three women in question all say that you physically attacked them explicitly without their consent – and that boyo – means your private life, your private kinks – are fucking irrelevant to the issue at hand, because attacking people is against the law.
“Early last summer, the Star began looking into allegations by young women of sexual abuse by Ghomeshi over the past two years. The Star conducted detailed interviews with the women, talking to each woman several times. None of the women filed police complaints and none agreed to go on the record. The reasons given for not coming forward publicly include the fear that they would be sued or would be the object of Internet retaliation. (A woman who wrote an account of an encounter with a Canadian radio host believed to be Ghomeshi was subjected to vicious Internet attacks by online readers who said they were supporters of the host.)”
Go read that paragraph again. You will not find a more clearly defined example of what rape culture is and how it affects women and their choices.
Why didn’t these women just go to the police? Because often filing a police report and going through the process ends up as nothing more as a re-victimization of an already traumatized individual and no legal censure for the abuser in question. Plus, now with the shiny new information age, women are targeted for harassment, rape and death threats over social media and email (just take a peek at the abuse women get for daring to speak their mind). Coming forward just isn’t that easy or cut and dried as people would like to portray.
From the New York Times:
“They [the women Ghomeshi abused] explain further:
“Each of the women accusing Ghomeshi cite the case of Carla Ciccone as a reason they desire anonymity. Last year Ciccone wrote an article for the website XOJane about a ‘bad date’ with an unidentified, very popular Canadian radio host whom readers speculated to be Ghomeshi.
“In the days that followed, Ciccone received hundreds of abusive messages and threats. An online video calling her a ‘scumbag of the Internet’ has been viewed over 397,000 times.”
In her 2013 XOJane piece, Ms. Ciccone writes that a man she calls Keith, who “has a successful radio show in Canada,” repeatedly tried to touch her when they went to a concert together, even after she asked him to stop.
Those who speak up about sexual harassment or violence have long been subject to public scrutiny and criticism. But an onslaught of online abuse and threats has become a strikingly common response to women’s public statements — see for instance the threats Anita Sarkeesian and others have received when they speak publicly about misogyny in video games.
Brianna Wu, a game developer, details her harassment in an essay at XOJane, describing death and rape threats as well as threats to her career:
“They tried to hack my company financially on Saturday, taking out our company’s assets. They’ve tried to impersonate me on Twitter in an effort to discredit me. They are making burner accounts to send lies about my private life to prominent journalists. They’ve devastated the metacritic users’ score of my game, Revolution 60, lowering it to 0.3 out of 100.”
Yah, soooo..before we get any spirited arguments about “Why didn’t they just go to the police? – the above quote is your answer. Do you want to face the possibility of ruining your life given the very real chance that your trauma won’t be taken seriously by the authorities? Can you see how large the disincentive is for women to “go public”. Again, say hi to what it like to live in a rape culture.
Heather Malik writing in the Toronto Star elaborates this key point about how rape culture effects women and the reporting of sexual abuse:
“When it comes to redress for suffering a sexual attack, Canadian women might as well be in Saudi Arabia. We whisper among friends and quietly trade stories, or we shut up for our entire careers.
The barriers start with institutional sexism and pile on with the almost impossible burden of proof for acts committed in private, the adulation offered to well-paid and well-connected men, the insulation of a large staff on Ghomeshi’s radio show Q, his hiring of a PR company and a team of libel lawyers, the fact that he claims he is a union member now filing a grievance against the CBC, an army of carefully catered-to fans online, the continuing shock of being physically assaulted, and then one of the worst things of all, the terror of being placed in the online bearpit.”
The stigma for women surrounding sexual assault and battery needs to be removed. The choice between ruining your life for a slim chance at justice or shutting up about your sexual assault is really no choice at all for women, as this story so vividly illustrates. Women need protection and support from the legal system and society. Woman should be able to exercise their human and legal rights without fear of retribution from the misogynistic elements of society that would see their lives ruined for the mere act of speaking the truth about their experiences.
As a long time CBC radio listener, I sincerely hope that Mr.Ghomeshi is not rehired. Canada is a progressive country and the abusive, anti-woman vibe that surrounds Mr.Ghomeshi has no place on our national radio network.
Harper wants Canada to go on airstrikes on Iraq. That’s right. Canada. The nice ones, the peace keepers, the polite people, the bastion of warm-gooey-joy-joy feelings, the “we’re awesome because we can solve problems without bombing people” great white north. He wants us conducting air strikes. We have to tell him ‘No.’
Elizabeth May of the Green Party spoke against the airstrikes (video below) and I think she did a good job. There’s a big part of me that wishes she didn’t tread so softly, that she went for the jugular and tore them a new one. That said, I recognize that her overly tactful and diplomatic manor probably has a much better chance of being considered than the enraged reaming I figure Harper needs. In any event, May has one seat while Harper has a majority government. We citizens need to help out on this one.
I have drafted a template letter anyone is free to copy, paste, edit, amend, and send to their MP. Please share it, send it in, or even write your own. Spread the word. Say ‘No’ to airstrikes.
Dear [your MP’s name] ,
My name is [your name] and I am a resident of [your riding], a voice you are supposed to represent. I cannot express strongly enough how much I am against Mr. Harper’s proposal to join in the airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS. My opposition to the airstrikes can be summarized in three points:
1) It’s un-Canadian. We are, first and foremost, peace keepers and have a history of peace keeping and are supposed to be the good, nice country. Nice people don’t go on airstrikes.
2) It’s ineffective. The U.S has been running airstrikes against the region for who knows how long and terrorism persists. It doesn’t work.
3) However much we might hurt terrorist organizations with airstrikes (again, history shows it won’t be much) we will hurt innocent civilians much more.
For the good of the people of the world and for the integrity of our nation I ask you to do all you can to convince Mr. Harper that this is the wrong course of action and, at the very least, vote against joining in the airstrikes.
Sincerely,
[your name]
[your address]
[your phone number]
The NDP seeing the traction that the fifteen dollar minimum wage is getting in the US has made it part of their platform.
“NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says he will put the idea of a $15 an hour minimum wage to a vote in Parliament when it resumes next week.
“Household debt in Canada is skyrocketing right now, families are having more and more trouble getting by. The good middle class jobs that people used to be able to rely on just aren’t there any more,” Mulcair said, speaking in Vancouver on Saturday.”
It is time to start distributing the profits a little more equally here in Canada, and raising the minimum wage is great place to start.
Creating a sonic landscape on a highway using grooves and ridges that cause your tires to resonate at a certain pitch; who would have thought to do that?
Recognizable? Yes.
In tune? Sadly, no, but other than enforcing a strict “play speed” there is no way to get around this problem of modulation. We want to try this in Canada to apparently.
“MacDonald has taken his proposal to Whistler council, which has referred the plan to staff for consideration. He has also spoken with officials in B.C.’s highways ministry. MacDonald is also preparing his own feasibility study to convince lawmakers that a musical highway would make the Sea-to-Sky sing. MacDonald believes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (sometimes referred to as Ode to Joy) would be the ideal piece of music for the Sea-to-Sky Highway. He wants the musical stretch of highway to begin at the entrance to Whistler, near Function Junction. For those people who know Whistler, there’s the Symphony Bowl, the Flute Ridge, the High Note Trail,” says MacDonald.
“I’m going to call it the r’Ode to Joy.”
I’m guessing it would be an ‘attraction’ of sorts, but the awesomeness of hearing an out of tune Ode to Joy played by your car tires escapes me for the most part. Also consider the local residents…
Because Magic, taught as fact, in the curriculum is AWESOME!
Further breaking news: The Edmonton Public School Board will also remove Soylent Green Recipe Book from the Foods curriculum.
How does feculence like this happen in my school system?
“An Edmonton teen and her mother have filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission over a high school sex education class delivered by a religious-based group. Last year, Emily Dawson, 18, took part in a two-day class delivered as part of the Career and Life Management course at McNally High School. The teenager says she was shocked by what she heard.
“Basically shaming the girls and making them gatekeepers and meanwhile making it sound like the boys had no impulse control,” she said.
The Edmonton Public School Board used the Pregnancy Care Centre to conduct the course. The centre is affiliated with Care-Net, an American based anti-abortion movement. Both groups focus on advocating abstinence from sex.
How many other little “whoopsies” does the EPSB have up its sleeve? The NRA about the value of gun control and firearm safety? Exxon on Environmental Stewardship?
What the crap?
First, lets establish what our Experts in Christian Misogyny are advocating. From Care.net –
“Care Net promotes and supports sexual abstinence until marriage among youth through its LifeWise Program. LifeWise services are available free of charge to churches, schools, and any youth-serving organizations. Care Net will also partner with parents to provide neighborhood programs in homes or at Care Net’s facility on the east side of Madison.
Care Net works to end abortion, not primarily through political action but by building a culture where every woman receives all the support she needs to welcome her child and create her own success story. By empowering women and men to make courageous, life-affirming choices, Care Net and our affiliate pregnancy centers end abortions every single day.”
Well, isn’t this just a “Grade-A” glistening block of bullshit on display. They also run Pregnancy centres to hoodwink traumatized women and baffle them with religious bullshit and obstruct them while they attempt to obtain a legal medical procedure.
What a charming bunch of folks, god bless their hearts, we are dealing with here.
So, let’s take a look at the facts of the matter just to show exactly how full of shit our christian care.net friends are and the poisonous message they brought into the Edmonton public school system.
From:
The Failure of Abstinence-only Education: minors have a right to honest talk about sex. – Published in: Sexuality and the Law Symposium, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 12-62, 2006.
“Abstinence-only sex education is anything but educational. At best, it deprives students of the knowledge necessary to manage their own sexual health. At worst, it is dangerous to minors and to the public health. As the Waxman Report concluded, “[s]erious and pervasive problems with the accuracy of abstinence-only curricula may help explain why these programs have not been shown to protect adolescents from sexually transmitted diseases and why youth who pledge abstinence are significantly less likely to make informed choices about precautions when they do have sex.”18 In a society that purports to value children, the state should foster healthy, informed minors who are equipped to manage their sexual health responsibly. At the very least, the state should not encourage or support educators and programs in misleading children and promoting false, dangerous, and potentially injurious practices.”
~~~~
“In light of the potential health risks associated with these curricula, abstinence-only education cannot be justified as intending to serve any significant state interest. While the government may have an interest in encouraging abstinence in unmarried youth, its current policy is being pursued at the expense both of truth and public health. Importantly, there is no evidence that providing comprehensive sex education promotes increased sexual behavior or dilutes the message that abstinence is a preferable choice, as proponents assert.250 Furthermore, the government’s singular focus on abstinence represents an educational policy that is inconsistent with the democratic educational objective of preparing adolescents to make responsible, informed choices.”
More on efficacy of Abstinence only versus comprehensive sex education.
“Using figures from 1995-2000, Advocates for Youth (www.advocatesforyouth.org) reports that the HIV rate for Americans 15-24 is five times that of German youth of the age. The U.S. teen syphilis rate is six times higher than the Dutch; the chlamydia rate is 20 times that of French teens; and our teen gonorrhea rate is a whopping 74 times higher than the Dutch.
European programs that provide uncensored sex education and promote condom use are the reasons for this success. Contrary to what one might expect, European youth have fewer sex partners than Americans do and begin sex slightly later than Americans. What is alarming, however, is that America has the largest percentage of girls who have sex by age 15.
The U.S. also has the highest teen birth rate among 28 developed countries. According to a UNICEF study, less than 10 per 100,000 teenage girls in Korea, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden gave birth in 2001, whereas 52 American teens per 100,000 did.”
More on the failure of Abstinence Only Education – Here, Here, Here, here… Let us conclude then that our dear Christian Misogynists are the engineers of the fail-train; happily throwing more coal into the fire as they move full speed ahead and with Jesus and Ignorance at their side, they are unstoppable.
We should get back to Kelly and Emily and their experience with these professional dispensers of mendacity.
Kathy Dawson says she tried to pull her daughter Emily out of the class for the second day. But she says the school informed her that Emily had to take the class in order to pass her course. So she joined her daughter in the classroom. A single mother, Dawson said she was shocked what students were told about families like hers.
“Well, that our children are prone to depression, suicide, juvenile delinquency,” she said.
The remarks also surprised her daughter. “It’s not something that you hear every day where you’re getting bashed for being in a single-parent home.”
Kathy Dawson was also upset the class appeared to focus on values instead of science.”
See. Seeeeeeeeee?!? This is what happens when you let this sort of religious malevolent altiloquence into the secular classroom. Shaming single parent families, fuck-ya god hates you – and lets not forget about the eternally burning homosexuals…
“I have a friend that is a lesbian and she was asking what would happen if she didn’t want to stay abstinent and then the educator said, ‘We’re not here to talk about that,’” Dawson said.
Yes, telling young children that they’ll burn seems a little out of place in Canada (and the norm for secular societies), so we’ll just ignore your question instead. The nice people at Care Net are so full of love, tolerance, and compassion.
Full marks to Kathy Dawson for taking action to get these people out of the school system.
The Alberta Human Rights Commission has now accepted the Dawsons’ complaint.
“I’m training up my kids to respect science and demand science in their education,” Kathy Dawson said. “So this is a long haul, and I’m fully prepared to take it all the way.”
This is pretty much a slam dunk. Is religious bunk allowed in the classroom? Yes/No If the answer is yes, then the leaders of secular school board will have some explaining to do.
The EPSB took action –
the EPSB wrote that it had a registered nurse observe one of the presentations unannounced and found the information “met our standards and expectations on every level” but that it would still look for new presenters for the next year.
“Having said that, we’ve heard a lot of concerns expressed from the public over the last several days about guest speakers invited to present on the topic of sexual health education,” the board wrote.
“We are asking our schools in the fall to use different presenters so that we can continue this conversation, and focus on meeting the needs of students and parents.”
Well the school board doesn’t have its head entirely up its ass. Woo!
[Source]
[Source]
Did you think Canada was all about the fun? Nope, nope, nope! Learning first, then fireworks and beer. :)
“The enactment of the British North America Act, 1867 (today called the Constitution Act, 1867), which confederated Canada, was celebrated on July 1, 1867, with the ringing of the bells at the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto and “bonfires, fireworks and illuminations, excursions, military displays and musical and other entertainments”, as described in contemporary accounts.[35] On June 20 of the following year, Governor General the Viscount Monck issued a royal proclamation asking for Canadians to celebrate the anniversary of Confederation,[36] However, the holiday was not established statutorily until May 15, 1879,[37] when it was designated as Dominion Day, in reference to the designation of the country as a Dominion in the British North America Act.[38] The holiday was initially not dominant in the national calendar; any celebrations were mounted by local communities and the governor general hosted a party at Rideau Hall.[35] No official celebrations were therefore held until 1917 and then none again for a further decade—the golden and diamond anniversaries of Confederation, respectively.[22]
In 1946, Philéas Côté, a Quebec member of the House of Commons, introduced a private member’s bill to rename Dominion Day as Canada Day.[39] His bill was passed quickly by the House of Commons but was stalled by the Senate, which returned the bill to the Commons with the recommendation that the holiday be renamed The National Holiday of Canada, an amendment that effectively killed the bill.[40]
Beginning in 1958, the Canadian government began to orchestrate Dominion Day celebrations. That year, then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker requested that Secretary of State Ellen Fairclough put together appropriate events, with a budget of $14,000. Parliament was traditionally in session on July 1, but Fairclough persuaded Diefenbaker and the rest of the federal Cabinet to attend.[35] Official celebrations thereafter consisted usually of Trooping the Colour ceremonies on Parliament Hill in the afternoon and evening, followed by a mass band concert and fireworks display, though Fairclough, who became Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, later expanded the bills to include performing folk and ethnic groups and the day became more casual and family oriented.[35] Canada’s centennial in 1967 is often seen as an important milestone in the history of Canadian patriotism and in Canada’s maturing as a distinct, independent country, after which Dominion Day became more popular with average Canadians. Into the late 1960s, nationally televised, multi-cultural concerts held in Ottawa were added and the fête became known as Festival Canada. After 1980, the Canadian government began to promote celebrating Dominion Day beyond the national capital, giving grants and aid to cities across the country to help fund local activities.
Some Canadians were, by the early 1980s, informally referring to the holiday as Canada Day.[n 4] However, this practice did cause some controversy:[46] Numerous politicians, journalists, and authors, such as Robertson Davies,[47] decried the change at the time and some continue to maintain that it was illegitimate and an unnecessary break with tradition.[41] Proponents argued that the name Dominion Day was a holdover from the colonial era, an argument given some impetus by the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982, and others asserted that an alternative was needed as the term does not translate well into French.[41] Conversely, these arguments were disputed by those who claimed Dominion was widely misunderstood and conservatively inclined commenters saw the change as part of a much larger attempt by Liberals to “re-brand” or re-define Canadian history.[41][47][48] Columnist Andrew Cohen called Canada Day a term of “crushing banality” and criticized it as “a renunciation of the past [and] a misreading of history, laden with political correctness and historical ignorance”.[49]
The holiday was officially renamed as a result of a private member’s bill that, on July 9, 1982, two years after receiving first reading in the House of Commons,[35] there received third reading when only twelve Members of Parliament were present. (This was actually eight members less than a quorum, but, according to parliamentary rules, the quorum is enforceable only at the start of a sitting or when a member calls attention to it.[50]) The bill was passed by the House in five minutes, without debate,[46] which inspired “grumblings about the underhandedness of the process”.[35] It met with stronger resistance in the Senate—some Senators objected to the change of name; Ernest Manning, who argued that the rationale for the change was based on a misperception of the name, and George McIlraith, who did not agree with the manner in which the bill had been passed and urged the government to proceed in a more “dignified way”—but finally passed.[41] With the granting of Royal Assent, the name was officially changed to Canada Day on October 27, 1982.
As the anniversary of Confederation, Dominion Day, and later Canada Day, was the date set for a number of important events, such as the first national radio network hookup by the Canadian National Railway (1927); the inauguration of the CBC’s cross-country television broadcast, with Governor General Vincent Massey’s Dominion Day speech from Parliament Hill (1958);[35] the flooding of the Saint Lawrence Seaway (1958); the first colour television transmission in Canada (1966); the inauguration of the Order of Canada (1967); and the establishment of “O Canada” as the country’s national anthem (1980). Other events fell on the same day coincidentally, such as the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916—shortly after which Newfoundland recognized July 1 as Memorial Day to commemorate the Newfoundland Regiment’s heavy losses during the battle[51][52]—and the enactment of the Chinese Immigration Act in 1923—leading Chinese-Canadians to refer to July 1 as Humiliation Day and boycott Dominion Day celebrations until the act was repealed in 1947.[53]”
[Source:Wikipedia]
What the hell is this? Am I living in the US or something?
This story broke on on CBC radio June 27th, and listening to what happened I filled this news tid-bit safely under the “smart people doing stupid things” category. The tale of this doctor’s mixed up medical ethos stuck in my brain though and managed to annoy me enough inspire a blog post on the topic.
“A Calgary doctor is being criticized by patients for refusing to prescribe birth control at a walk-in clinic. When Dr. Chantal Barry is on shift a sign at the WestGlen Medical Centre informs patients that the doctor on duty does not prescribe birth control pills.”
Whut? Naw, lets append that to, “What the ever living frak is Dr. Chantal Barry thinking/smoking?”
“The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons has a policy that states doctors are not required to provide care that violates their moral or religious beliefs. However, physicians are expected to refer patients for care in a timely manner.”
Okay, a stupid policy if I ever heard one, but at least it has the proviso that patients that you happen to neglect because of your particular voodoo should be referred to another doctor that is less reality challenged then yourself. In this situation though, being a clinic with only one doctor on duty per shift, that particular option doesn’t exist.
Pam Krause, head of the Calgary Sexual Health Centre, said she is shocked to hear about a doctor at a walk-in clinic refusing routine medical care.
“Easy access to birth control works,” she said. “It prevents pregnancy and it prevents other social problems down the road, and it should be easily accessible in a city like Calgary from a family physician.”
The solution, Dear Doctor Barry , is keep your ‘morality’ hung discreetly under that MD in evidence based fucking medicine and do your damn job.
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